


i'll drown in my despair before i even know you’re there

by tigerlo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, Isn't that called flangst?, It's just the best feelings time for them alright..., Late night talking about feelings aka things heartsways likes as much as I do, More processing about Charity's past because there's sooooo much to cover, angst and feelings, even though I've watched the show for five seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 20:25:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: Charity talks to Vanessa about Cain.





	i'll drown in my despair before i even know you’re there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartsways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsways/gifts).



> This little piece could slot in anywhere after Charity reveals her past with Bails to Vanessa and the abuse she suffered, so take your pick. It's very moody and a bit dramatic, I realise that, but so is Charity, so there. 
> 
> For heartsways, thanks for reading my drafts and reassuring me they're not shit, lady. You're the bomb.

-

 

Charity doesn’t talk about her past much, she never dwells on old lovers, but Vanessa knows they’re a burden somewhere in the locked box sitting in Charity’s chest. 

 

The hissed  _ I didn’t tell you the half of it  _ haunts Vanessa sometimes, more than the thought of what might have happened if Charity’s bluff that day had been more than just words, because Vanessa knows there’s truth in that, in Charity’s admission, and it makes Vanessa feel sick sometimes, because how can the years of abuse not even be half of what Charity has had to endure. How on  _ earth _ can there be more? 

 

She doesn’t push though, she doesn’t dare push. She’s learnt that lesson the hard way. Because it’s not her truth to seek, it’s not her secret to reveal, and she knows Charity will tell her, one day, if she wants to. If she’s ever ready. 

 

Charity does a good deal of her storytelling in the middle of the night, not only because it’s about the only time they have a free bloody moment from a house full of beings that require almost constant attention, but because the dark hides all manner of sins, because Vanessa thinks it hides Charity’s self-imposed and self-administered loathing, most of all. 

 

They’re lying in bed, Charity on her back with Vanessa curled up and half draped over her side, and her head resting on Charity’s shoulder with Charity’s arm around her own. Their thighs are a tangled mess of limbs heavy with release and Vanessa sighs, deeply content, as Charity draws slow, lazy circles over the naked skin of her arm, still holding the heat of their earlier activities. 

 

There’s a tension to Charity tonight, Vanessa can feel it. There’s something bothering her, something that’s been a little off with her all day, in fact. She’s quite sure the problem isn’t with her though - Charity’s not normally shy about telling her when that’s the case - which, surprisingly is normally more helpful than not. 

 

They can air their frustrations when they happen that way, they can smooth the annoyance or hurt before they plant a seed of resentment or discontent.  _ No _ , Vanessa thinks.  _ This isn’t about her. This is about something else.  _

 

“Are you alright?” Vanessa asks, lifting her head off Charity’s shoulder to look her in the eye. She’ll only ask once, and if Charity doesn’t want to talk about it, she’ll drop it. She’ll spend the rest of the night trying to steer Charity’s mind away from it, instead. 

 

“Fine, babe,” Charity says, smiling back at her, hair messy and still a little glazed, and it’s honest, her affirmation - she’s ok, happy even, here, in this moment with Vanessa. 

 

Even if another, far larger part of her most definitely is not. 

 

Charity’s better at compartmentalising than anyone else Vanessa has ever met, would hazard a guess that she’s probably one of the best in the whole bloody country at it. It takes Vanessa’s breath away sometimes in fact, how she can keep on going holding all that broken glass against her heart. 

 

Vanessa presses a kiss to Charity’s shoulder before she drops her head down against it, her arm tightening around Charity’s waist, turning her head so she can press another to the swell of Charity’s breast, smiling when Charity’s voice vibrates against her cheek. 

 

“Careful,” Charity warns, low and gravelly, and Vanessa feels the heat pool between her thighs. It’s evocative, her tone, it’s completely captivating, wholly distracting, and never fails to drive Vanessa half-mad with desire no matter where they are. 

 

“Why?” Vanessa asks coyly, ready to offer her distraction anew if that’s what Charity needs, fingertips searching for the spot on Charity’s hip that always makes her squirm. 

 

“Because I’ll be a right grump in the morning if you jump my bones again,” Charity says, the picture of innocence, despite the fact that  _ she _ most definitely did the jumping earlier in the evening, not Vanessa. “I’ve got to be up for delivery, don’t I.”

 

“I think Chas cheated with that coin toss, you know,” Vanessa laughs, feeling Charity’s chest expand with a barked one of her own. 

 

“Course she bloody did,” Charity snorts, and Vanessa smiles when Charity’s breath hitches at her roving hands. “She’s more of a cheater than you are.”

 

“I think you’re just a bad loser,” Vanessa teases. “Don’t want to admit someone can do you over so badly in a game of cards.”

 

“It was hardly a game on equal terms. That low cut top was a cheap move, babe,” Charity growls in reply, but Vanessa can hear the smile in her voice too. “And you know it.”

 

“Didn’t hear you complaining,” Vanessa returns, tracing a line along Charity’s breastbone, smirking when Charity shivers. “Not at the table. Certainly not when you had me on top of it, either.”

 

“We need to get Paddy a bloody bell,” Charity says as her fingers move around the vertebrae in Vanessa’s spine, weaving in and out of the dips and rises. “Don’t think he’ll ever come back looking for his coat again though, will he?”

 

“Probably a good thing you’d been too hard up to actually take any of my clothes off,” Vanessa breathes, a slow rush blowing a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes. 

 

“Er, I seem to recall  _ you _ stuffing my hand up  _ your _ skirt, babe,” Charity replies with a hint of argument in her tone. “Not me.”

 

“Potato, potatoe,” Vanessa says, smiling at the tiny rise she draws out of Charity. “You didn’t argue though, did you? Or take more than about a second to climb up on top of me.”

 

“Have you seen what you look like in that top, Vanessa? You’re lucky I didn’t have you there in the middle of dinner,” Charity throws, her chest rumbling with desire, and Vanessa knows it’s not an exaggeration because Charity has unceremoniously kicked Chas and Paddy or Tracy out early more than once just so she could drag Vanessa upstairs. 

 

Not that Vanessa had been complaining then, either. 

 

There are so many small constellations now, moments with Charity, little bunches of memories like stars that she holds like riches against her chest; kisses and laughter and hushed hurried voices as Charity pushes her against the cellar door, rucking her skirt up around her waist and touching Vanessa until all she can do is gasp and beg; of lazy mornings in bed, Charity running her fingers through Vanessa’s hair as she reads the morning paper off to one side with Vanessa’s head in her lap. 

 

She knows that Charity would already have Vanessa on her back now, her hand between Vanessa’s thighs if she weren’t completely exhausted - it’s almost lucky they’re not teenagers, Vanessa thinks with a laugh, they’d never leave the house if they had a spoonful more energy -  _ that _ she knows for a certainty. 

 

It’s tempting to prompt Charity regardless of the fact that Vanessa is exhausted too, because it’s almost impossible to be next to Charity, naked or not, and  _ not _ want to touch her, but there’s something lovely in the stillness beginning to settle around them that Vanessa is loathe to interrupt. 

 

They’re quiet for a long time, Charity’s steady breathing beneath her ear like a lullaby, so long that Vanessa can feel sleep calling for her, the room blurring around her with every exhale. She can feel Charity still wide awake beneath her though. She can see feel the lingering tension, as strong as if it were a voice in the room, and it’s enough to help her cling to consciousness. 

 

She’s about to raise her head to ask Charity one last time whether she’s actually ok or not when Charity beats her to it. 

 

“He was ashamed of me, you know?” Charity says quietly, staring at the ceiling, as if trying to see the stars bright beyond it. “Cain, I mean. He was ashamed of what I’d been. Of what I had to do.”

 

It chills Vanessa’s blood in spite of the warmth of Charity’s body all around her own - the admission - and she’s so shocked that it takes her a moment to collect herself enough to reply. 

 

“Ashamed?” Vanessa begins, her fatigue falling to the wayside, pushing up on her elbow to look at Charity incredulously. “How on earth could be have been…”

 

“Wasn’t even the worst part,” Charity replies, taking a massive breath beneath Vanessa, and she understands what this is, what all of Charity’s steady moments of revelation are. They’re Charity pulling the thorn from her flesh like the long-suffering lion in Johnny’s book, hissing with the pain of its removal. “Worst part was that he made me feel ashamed of it, too.”

 

That makes Vanessa see white - rage like she hasn’t felt in her life besides the afternoon Charity had told her about Bails - and she’s of half a mind to march down to his house starkers and bang on the door so she can kick the living daylights out of him, but she knows that’s not going to help Charity now. Listening will though. And a steady hand on Charity’s hip. She can save the violence for the morning. 

 

“I’d been alright about it until then,” Charity says neutrally, like she’s talking about the weather and not years of abuse. “I think I’d been young and naïve enough not to give it more value in my head than I should’ve, but then he came back and changed all that, didn’t he?”

 

“Charity, I am so sorry,” Vanessa says softly, slowly, kindly, pressing her hand palm down over Charity’s heart, and it always feels weak,  _ sorry _ , but she knows there’s a strength in it for Charity, because it’s a thousand leagues more than anybody’s ever offered before. “I can’t believe he had the gall to-“

 

“Yes you can, babe,” Charity says firmly, with a painful simplicity. “Everyone’s always made me feel ashamed of it. You’re the first one that hasn’t, aren’t you.”

 

“But it’s….” Vanessa says, the red to Charity’s almost unnatural calm. “I don’t understand. How  _ dare _ he?” 

 

“Same way everyone else does, Ness,” Charity replies with a shrug in her tone. “They make it my shame, don’t they. It’s a clever trick, really. Make it  _ my _ dirty secret and not theirs.”

 

It almost cripples Vanessa sometimes, it makes her knees weak, the knowledge of the weight that Charity has carried by herself for so long, the knowledge of how cruel everyone around her has been her entire life. 

 

“How can they?” Vanessa almost growls back, trying to calm herself against the beat of Charity’s heart under her palm. Strong. Clear. 

 

“Just the way the world works, innit, buttercup?” Charity says, finally looking her in the eye, raising Vanessa’s hand to her lips. “Only fair for a lucky few.”

 

It’s not self-indulgent, Charity’s comment, Vanessa hasn’t ever heard a  _ woe me _ fall from Charity’s lips despite the fact that she’s earnt the right to say it more than anyone else Vanessa knows. It’s just a fact. It hurts though, like a knife in her gut - how blasé the world has forced Charity to be about her own pain, and half the time she wonders why on earth she’d want to be a part of a place so cruel. 

 

“He was a violent man,” Charity says, leaning up on her elbow now too, pushing a bit of Vanessa’s hair behind her ear. “He  _ is _ a violent man, I mean. That stuff never goes away, not really, no matter how different he pretends to be. Some people just are, you know? Violent? He’s not even the  _ most _ violent, not by a long shot, but it’ll always be there. Moira can calm him, but even she can’t get rid of that, not totally.”

 

Vanessa catches Charity’s hand on her cheek before she lowers it, holding it there so she can kiss her palm quickly, and Charity smiles in response, a proper  _ genuine _ smile that makes Vanessa warm, tilting her head to the side in a way that never fails to make Vanessa think she’s the most beautiful personification of pain in existence. 

 

The most beautiful personification of anything, come to that. 

 

“I still thought he was a prince though,” Charity adds after a moment, sweeping her thumb over Vanessa’s cheekbone. “Thought the rage was charming, for a while. Until it came my way. There’s more of him in Debbie than me, I’m sure of it. Always used to think it was the other way round, but I know it’s not, now. Sometimes I look at her and see him in her eyes so clearly and it makes me….Christ, what kind of person am I to have a moment where I hate my own children?” 

 

Vanessa won’t say  _ you don’t, really, _ she won’t, because she knows it wouldn’t be true. It’s more complicated, the relationship between family, Vanessa knows that love isn’t a guarantee, even from children of our own body, that they can be more vicious than anyone else because they’re born with a knowledge of your weakness written in their blood like a secret. 

 

“Were you afraid of him?” Vanessa asks, and she’s not sure she wants to know the answer but she knows that she needs to, because things like this - knowing what Charity fears, now and in her past - they can help her. They give Vanessa the power to try and twist an antidote, or a relief at least, together in her hands and offer it with no expectation of anything in return. 

 

“Not in the beginning, I was too green,” Charity says with a heavy drop of cynicism. “I was too bloody enamoured. Not in the middle either, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being scared then. Didn’t want him to feel like he was the one to finally break me in. At the end I still wasn’t. Because what was the  _ worst _ he could have done to me that someone else hadn’t already done?” 

 

Vanessa doesn’t know how to reply sometimes, it’s too hard,  _ sorry _ suffices in some situations but it seems like an insult in others. She can feel the tears prick the corner of her eyes but she won’t cry, she won’t, because Charity has been  _ so _ strong for so long and Vanessa needs be that for her now in return. 

 

Words won’t cut it, they won’t make a dent this time, so Vanessa kisses her. With her heart and her soul and her kindness, she kisses Charity instead. It seems almost counterproductive, to try and heal years of physical torment and pain with a touch, but Vanessa knows how important it is to replace memories of rough, violent hands with soft. 

 

_ Hair of the dog _ , Charity had moaned against her lips once, turning to Vanessa after a nightmare left her scratching at her thighs like something was trapped beneath her skin.  _ It makes it better, having your hands on me, Ness. Having that in my head instead.  _

 

They kiss for a long time, long enough for Vanessa to lose track of how deep into the night it is, for her whole body to be so awash with Charity that she feels it in every inch of her lungs, long enough that Charity finally relaxes a fraction against her lips. 

 

“Not a very good bedtime story is it?” Charity asks with a cynical huff, her forehead resting against Vanessa’s. 

 

“It’s important,” Vanessa says, because there isn’t anything else she can. Her hand cups Charity’s jawline and she feels Charity smile against her thumb where it rests on the corner of her lips. 

 

“I thought about it occasionally, about making it all stop, but I was too much of a coward. Couldn’t do it in the end,” Charity says after she breaks away to rest the top of her head against Vanessa’s cheek instead. “Used to see them all sneering at me, passing under streetlights in the dark, telling me they knew I was too weak to ever do something properly. I tried to be reckless enough to make someone else do it instead, and it nearly worked a few times, too.”

 

It makes Vanessa feel faintly sick, it makes her hands feel clammy, the thought of someone hurting Charity that badly, the thought of her looking for it because she couldn’t find relief anywhere else. 

 

“Glad it didn’t now though,” Charity offers after a few seconds, and Vanessa can almost hear her walls raising, the moment passing, Charity shaking the ghosts clinging to her off, and Vanessa marvels at her ability to pack up her emotions so neatly. “Look at me now.” 

 

“You know I don’t feel like that, don’t you?” Vanessa says, even though it’s pushing it, to reopen the dialogue after Charity has already signalled it shut, but she needs Charity to understand this, she needs to make sure Charity knows. “I’m not just saying it. You know I’d never…. I’d never bring it up to hurt you. I’d never throw it back at you, no matter how bad a row we had.”

 

“I know, babe,” Charity replies and the tone in her voice tells Vanessa that she does. “Wouldn’t bother givin’ you all this ammo if I thought you were gonna turn around and kill me with it, would I? Stupid move on my part, that would be.”

 

She half-laughs at her own response, because that’s what Charity does, that’s how she deals, Vanessa knows this now. It’s jarring and hard to hear most of the time, her making light of her pain, the fact that her deepest scars are nothing more than a weapon to be used against her again and again in someone else’s hands, but it’s Charity’s to deal with, this pain. It’s hers to decide how she processes it. 

 

It’s Vanessa’s decision to stay though. To show Charity that she’ll cover the scars with her own hands to stop anyone else coming for them, that she’ll stand bodily between her and her enemies to prevent anyone from hurting her ever again. 

 

Charity drops her head back down against her pillow, and Vanessa follows suit, taking Charity’s hand in the space between their faces, and there are about a thousand things that Vanessa wants to say but she can feel Charity tiptoeing around something in her head so she holds her silence instead. 

 

“I know I don’t say it enough, or at all,” Charity offers at last, the gap between her words long enough that Vanessa isn’t sure she’s going to fill it at all. “But it means a lot, yeah. That you’re different. That you’d never… that you’re not like all the others.”

 

She doesn’t implicitly say it but the  _ thank you _ is there, woven between Charity’s words if Vanessa cares enough to look for it. And she does, of course she does because it’s about the most touching thing Charity could say to her, it’s about the kindest compliment Charity could ever pay her, that she recognises how different Vanessa is. 

 

“I’m not like the others,” Vanessa says against Charity’s lips when she leans forward to kiss her, rolling her onto her back so she can slide a leg between Charity’s. 

 

“You’re not like the others,” Charity replies, smiling as she shakes her head, her hands finding their place on Vanessa’s hips before one slides to Vanessa’s lower back and the other moves up her spine. 

 

“I’ll  _ never _ be like the others,” Vanessa says fiercely, her hand running along the outside of Charity’s thigh, hooking it around her waist. 

 

“You’ll never be like the others,” Charity repeats, agrees, kisses Vanessa deeply, the both of them groaning with it, and it’s massive, the acknowledgement from Charity, almost enough to stop her in her tracks. The smile against her lips carries her momentum though, before Charity’s hands bury themselves in Vanessa’s hair. 

 

“Better snog for a start, aren’t I,” Vanessa says, voice cocky, satisfaction blooming when she runs her hand up the inside of Charity’s thighs and Charity’s reply dissolves in her gasp. 

 

“Shut  _ up _ , Ness,” Charity hisses when Vanessa moves, frictionless against Charity’s core, but she doesn’t mean it, she never means it, Vanessa knows Charity loves the sound of her voice. 

 

She calls for it, demands it sometimes, draws the volume from Vanessa’s lungs like a sorceress, an enchantress, a siren. 

 

“You’ll never be like the others,” Charity moans, half a prayer, her back arching off the bed when she comes, head tipped and bones cracking. 

 

There’s a long way to go, Vanessa knows this. They’ll have a hundred stops and starts before they settle, but it’s a beginning. 

 

“Never,” Vanessa growls, pushing Charity hard, until her muscles quake and scream for a pause. “Never, Charity.  _ Never _ .”

 

She won’t promise Charity the world like others have. No, Vanessa thinks as Charity peaks and falls beneath her hands, all the power of their entwined bodies crawling beneath her skin. 

 

She’ll show it to her, she’ll  _ give _ it instead. 

  
  


-

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com)! There are vanity mini-fics and drabbles and monochromatic pictures, oh my! xx


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